Sitting here comfortably in my Canadian living room and observing what is going on south of the border is like watching an Xtreme Fighting match for the championship of the world on a giant liquid plasma screen. American politics is high entertainment for those at a prophylactic distance and is crucially different from the bland predictability we are accustomed to here: a decent Conservative government prone to foot-in-mouth disease; Liberals slavering for power with a university intellectual who spent over thirty years out of the country as its leader; a socialist rump called the New Democratic Party playing the role of electoral spoiler; an absurd Green Party whose shrill clangor is in inverse ratio to its parliamentary silence, since it cannot boast a single representative; and the Bloc Québécois agitating for Quebec independence but raking in copacetic salaries and collecting sumptuous pension benefits, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer.

Of course, the stakes are immeasurably higher in the U.S., a country struggling for its very soul and teetering on the edge of economic and political meltdown. The “culture wars” between left and right, traditionalists and post-modernists, individualists and statists, are common to every Western nation, but in America the outcome of these wars will determine the fate not only of the country but of the entire Western world. Like it or not, how it goes with America is how it goes with the rest of us.

Europe, as many believe, is almost, if not already, lost. Following the self-inflicted devastation of two world wars in which it depleted its generational stock and sacrificed its brightest minds, Europe has gradually become a geopolitical memory. It could no more resist the Islamic onslaught that is demographically absorbing the continent than it could prevent itself from returning to its authoritarian past in the form of an unelected transnational bureaucracy operating out of the Berlaymont Building, meddling in the public life of member states along the entire range of intrusiveness from imposing quantitative restrictions on imports to passing advisory laws governing swimming pools. Britain is the hollow shell of a once great imperial hegemon, studded with mosques and vulnerable to shariah creep, reduced to a condition of plebeian boorishness (as a recent police report affirms and as Theodore Dalrymple mourns in The New Vichy Syndrome), minus the slightest vestige of national pride and vigor — in short, a country whose prime minister takes paternity leave. As for the Commonwealth outliers like Canada and Australia, nothing much of consuming significance happens there or can impact the larger political theater in any pivotal way.

The fact is that the remnant Lilliputian West has long depended on the Brobdingnagian stature and power of the United States to ensure its solvency, security, and ultimate survival. Absent the United States, what we like to call Western civilization would long ago have become a diorama in the vast Museum of History to pique the interest, perhaps, of Chinese high school excursions. And this is why, naturally, everybody loves to hate Americans, those “ignorant cowboys” and “loud vulgarians” whom Europeans affected to look down upon, those “rude mechanicals” that a vanishing breed of Brit, remembering Shakespeare, might have thought, those presumably aggressive conquistadors that so many Canadians, especially under the tutelage of former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, smugly enjoyed dismissing as irredeemable barbarians and moral inferiors.

Envy and resentment of this sprawling and robust — and necessary — giant among the nations were the motivating factors. For without the brawny presence of the United States in the Hobbesian jungle of world politics, neither Europe, Britain, nor the former Commonwealth dominions, as I have argued, could have defended their Enlightenment heritage or relied upon their own feeble military resources to guarantee their longevity. Gratitude, however, does not come easily. Contempt and self-infatuation are far more attractive emotional reactions for the parochial accessories of the grand historical drama. All those in the West who picket American embassies, deplore American ambition, write anti-American articles, columns, editorials and books, and cry “Down with America” are precisely the sycophantic beneficiaries of American strength and munificence.

Be careful what you wish for, as the old adage has it. Europe, for example, responded with unadulterated joy to the election of a statist, far left American president who apologized for American exceptionalism, adopted the socialist model of governance, pledged to reduce military expenditures, and brought his country to the brink of bankruptcy. Europeans did not realize — or did not want to acknowledge — that their “advanced” socialist experiment in welfare governance depended in large part upon American military spending for the continent’s defense, which permitted a liberated fiscal surplus to be invested in social programs, early retirement benefits, and a cradle-to-grave security network.

This is now changing. With the proposed reduction of American military spending, writes the National Post’s Matt Gurney, nations that “have been able to take American security guarantees for granted … allowing them to pursue the kind of social program spending that cannot be done in combination with large military outlays,” will have to mothball their “costly social engineering projects and welfare-state handouts.” Suddenly, Barack Obama no longer looks like a godsend but a weak and untrustworthy ally — in other words, like a European — who is depriving the continent of its parasitical future.

Regrettably, it is not only Europe that faces the specter of political and economic collapse. For America itself may be entering the tragic denouement of its 234 year odyssey. The “coming darkness” was not prepared overnight, but can be traced back to one or another terminus a quo — the dumbing-down “Progressivist” movement in education beginning with John Dewey and his accomplices (inspired by the insubstantial idealism of Rousseau’s child-centered theory of “natural education“), or the Sixties’ subjectivist “transvaluation of all values,” or the emergence of post-modern nihilism and moral relativism, though more likely all these “moments” constitute a seamless continuum of intellectual decay. Some might even argue that the seeds of the debacle were planted when the field was first tilled centuries ago. Nevertheless, the consummation of this trajectory toward radical implosion arrived with the stunning 2008 electoral victory of Barack Obama, following hard upon the Democratic Party assuming control of both houses of Congress.

All that has transpired since — the abdication of fiscal sobriety leading to the trillions of dollars debt sinkhole, the poor planning in the prosecution of America’s foreign wars, the growing racial disharmony caused by a supposedly post-racial presidency, the impending, unaffordable “climate legislation” based upon a mainly discredited theory of global warming, the continued dependence on Middle East oil rather than effectively tapping domestic reserves, the ceding of border control to the Mexican drug cartels (which, according to Republican Congresswoman Sue Myrick of North Carolina, may be facilitating the passage of “Iranian agents and members of Hezbollah” into the U.S.) and the convulsive effect of mass illegal immigration, the infiltration of Islamic ideas and institutions into the nooks and crannies of American life, the greater susceptibility to terrorist attacks, a Justice Department that refuses to implement its mandate, the swelling of unsustainable entitlement programs, and the socialist nationalization of banks, industries, and the health care system — all these features of Obama’s ascendancy point inexorably to the “fundamental transformation” of the United States into a politically hybridized nation that is part Venezuela, part Sweden, and part UK.

To believe that it can’t happen here, as Sinclair Lewis lessoned us back in 1935, albeit from a different perspective, is the height of naivety. Not only can it happen here, it is already happening even as we speak. It seems as if the country’s governing and intellectual elite has abandoned its responsibility for the preservation of America’s social and political integrity, surrendering by daily increments to the forces of dissolution both within and without its borders. America’s enemies couldn’t have planned it any better.

This is the reason that the November 2 elections are absolutely critical to stopping and reversing the downward trend which Obama and the Democrats have accelerated. The momentum of calamity must be turned back and the ground prepared for a colossal changing of the guard in the presidential election of 2012.

Failing this, it really will be game over, for the United States as we have come to know it will not survive a second round of Barack Obama — and neither, for that matter, will the rest of the West. No democratic polity will be safe, not comfy Canada, not remote Australia, not the land of yobs, and tottering Europe will lose its last pillar of erstwhile support. We can only hope that many, perhaps most, Americans have understood that the republic is now up for grabs and that the so-called “culture wars” are no less decisive — indeed, more decisive — in determining the nature and direction of America’s historical itinerary than the shooting wars currently being fought abroad. Jeff Perren rightly argues that the campaign to halt the plummet of the last four decades transcends politics and centrally involves the critical mission of recalibrating the culture, including taking back education. But the electorate must also compel the government to live within “its constitutionally enumerated powers” in order to restore America “to a free country, where the dominant ethos is respect for the individual’s rights and free exercise of judgment.”

Luckily, it does seem as if many, perhaps most, Americans have realized, however tardily, that the enemy within the gates is far more insidious, formidable, and menacing than the enemy without. Permitting the left to control the discourse of the nation is frankly disastrous. Acceding to the infestation of left organizations like ACORN, the SEIU, the ACLU, the AFT, and many others into the body politic is slow suicide. Reluctance to oppose the radiation of Progressivist thinking will yield the inevitable carcinogenic result. Allowing the Democrats to chart the infernal spiral to catastrophe is no longer a viable option. And giving Obama a second term would be terminal.

Are we now witnessing the beginning of a new assertiveness — a possible “renaissance,” as Perren hopes — or the hastening of precipitous decline? Is the great adventure gaining its second wind or is it merely winding down? Will the future be relinquished to an increasingly powerful China and an imminent Islamic caliphate to slug it out for world domination? Or will America shake off its ideological stupor and rise from the debris of its own making as, to our great relief, the once and future republic?

105 Comments, 43 Threads

1.
Zazaz

I agree 100% with Mr. Solway, and that is the reason why i follow US politics closely.

If the current politics continue, the US will first become the Soviet Union of the early 80s – military giant but on weak economic legs. When these legs crumble, as eventually they will have to, the US will be reduced to a once-great Nation, superpower no more. The chance is there to turn around, to return to greatness, far greater chance than in europe. The next two elections will be extremely crucial. In November there will be gains for conservatives.

Unionization of civil servants, outsourcing of nearly all industrial jobs overseas,outsourcing of tech jobs overseas,statist mindset of the citizenry, uncontrolled immigration/open border ,morally bankrupt politicians…Rome all over again.When do they start feeding Christians to the Lions?I forgot,that started on 911.

America’s federal government is in trouble, America (more accurately called We, The Sovereign American People) is not.

We, The People, are committed to and are engaged in fighting The Second American War Of Independence. (In a manner characteristic of that well remembered anglo-American, Winston Leonard Spencer Jerome Churchill — and inspired by his blood and sweat and tears speech, in which he insisted that when this thing is over it will not be sufficient for us to say that we have done our best, for we must have done whatever is necessary to succeed)

Have no doubt that We will prevail.

And have even less doubt that part of our strategy will include that (in part by the way of our States’ nullification of un-Constitutional “law”) We will first DISOBEY the feral gummint, we will then DE-FUND it — and will then force that it DEFAULT on its criminally incurred debt.

Disobey.

De-Fund.

Default.

Are you listening, “China?”

Listen, first, then, to November 2nd’s whispered warning. And know you ain’t seen nothing, yet.

Powerful and spot on Mr. Solway.If the GOP does not gain the House this election, we won’t have to worry about 2012 because the tipping point will have been reached before the next Presidential election.

At this point, there is no objective law, or enforceable conception of rights, remaining to Americans. Our political masters decide what the law is, and to whom it will be applied, from moment to moment: an exact definition of tyranny. Yet many of us, perhaps too many, continue to await a leader of stature and courage.

There are a few candidates on the scene, but none of them has yet risen high enough to become sufficiently widely acknowledged as our standard-bearer. The overall posture of American patriots remains waiting for someone credible to sound the charge. Even if the hoped-for electoral tsunami should arrive, we might well continue to wait until the tyrants give the order to fire on us.

You forgot to mention the demographics. The dominant Western culture represented by older Americans is being swamped by immigrants, legal and illegal, who are incouraged to remain “diverse”, to retain their cultures and loyalties, instead of becoming part of the whole. ” E plurbis unum” is being replaced by “out of many, even more”. The education system teaches “self esteem”, not unity and responsibility- and placing about 27th in terms of real learning. Patriotism is out, world citizenship is in.

The WWII generation is about gone, the baby boomers, who remember how it was is retiring, and the schools are indoctrinating young “progessives”.

Of all the things you mentioned, reclaiming the educational system is essential, or even the concept of the USA as something important to not only it’s own citizens, but the world, will die in another generation.

Is it too late? Even with a seriously course-correcting election this year and in 2012, is it too late? I hope not, but the current effort to re-inflate the real estate bubble, retain the welfare state and deny the sheer, overwhelming size of the problem and the sacrifice necessary to face it, is truly scary. Does this nation have the guts left to, remembering Ben Franklin, keep its republic?

No. We have a huge “welfare” voting block that thinks there is a never ending piggy bank represented by the democratic party and they all want their “share” of the $$booty.
Lack of education in civics and real life in general, the “me” generation have us on a rocky road full of pitfalls and huge sink holes.
!Obama throws out lies, he says prove he’s not lying, we do not answer back. Our answer needs to be a bitch slap answer.
Conservatives do not play the liberal game very well. They appear to be the NFL and we’re the local pee wee team. Gotta get a new game plan going in the next election.

Call me a pessimist, but I suspect we are doomed. Such a turnaround requires leadership. The greatest leaders on the Right are not “that guy”. In another few years, call it 2016, the Presidential elections will offer real leaders. People with track records of success and skill at enunciating principles.

Chris Christie seems to be that kind of man, although I remain a bit suspicious. I will wait to see if he can turn around NJ first.

Palin seems like a possibility, but the MSM have slimed her very effectively. She has to develop gravitas.

Some good guys in the Senate, but I want an ex-Governor, not an ex-Senator. I do not want someone who has been inculcated into the thinking of governmental solutions.

Petraeus? Maybe. Would his skills translate? Dunno. Does he have the dynamism? Dunno.

There is no Reagan out there, someone who can change the culture and be its new moral leader. “Our form of government is suited only for a moral people. It is wholly unsuited to any other.” Our culture has become immoral. So, too, has our government.

Petraeus blew it when he went public chastising the “burn the Koran” pastor, giving the issue major publicity which set off riots in the ME. Silence can be golden. Petraeus’s judgment is now tarnished,

We don’t have another six years, if we (the TEA Party and their followers) don’t win big in November the US may well fall, if we do win big in November it will be a long, hard struggle but in the long run we will win. One of the things we have to worry about is the very real possibility of a major terror attack between now and the election. As others have said, Pray, often and long.

But the electorate must also compel the government to live within “its constitutionally enumerated powers” in order to restore America “to a free country, where the dominant ethos is respect for the individual’s rights and free exercise of judgment.”

Thank you for correctly assessing the onset of our troubles – the early 20th century, when suddenly government took upon itself the job of saving people from themselves.

An analysis of the growth of government – and of the concomitant erosion of both individual freedom and public safety – which occurred between 1900 and 2000 would be very illuminating.

Speaking only for myself, I already have a Saviour. I don’t need government to fulfil that role.

The demise of the US I think is premature. Of course that is talking as an American. Without question Obama has been a disaster. But on the other hand it is time that the rest of the west actually stood up and took care of themselves. They don’t need us to fund their socialist experiments. Too bad that they now have to work past 60. I think most Americans really have no sympathy for the laziness that abounds in some countries. We are after-all a truly hard working nation.The overwhelming majority here don’t want a hand-out from the government, they want jobs. We also don’t want the government telling us how to think, act or lead our lives. We like to make our own choices and that is what the people resent about democratic paternalism.

On another note, I think that most of the world truly does not understand the American mindset. Our politics has always been raucous and we tend to be very animated. It is who we are. We voice our opinions and work toward our vision of what this country should be or not be. But that doesn’t mean we are headed in the same direction as Europe. In fact it is this argumentative and robust nature of our political system, that in fact will ensure the continuation of the American experiment, because unlike Europe we will not sit back and accept our demise. Americans in general, do not accept defeat nor do we take advice from others. Remember we are the descendants of people who ran away from the rest of the world to forge a new and better nation.We are a unique people, with a unique way of handling our own problems.

I have to sadly agree. Over the past 20 years, I’ve heard from many Europeans about the US as a “bully”, “uncontrolled” and so forth. One even told me about how the trains in the US can’t compare to those in Germany.

I got in trouble for telling them:
A)That the only reasons they have new trains, etc is because their infrastructure was destroyed in WW II
B)Everything was built up from scratch via the Marshall plan, sponsored by the US
C) If it was up to the rest of Europe (after WW II) Germany would have no technology greater than that required to maintain an agrarian society
D) That they lived under the protection of the US for 50 years

I than suggested that we should pull out our military assets (and money)and level our military bases. Oh the shock! Oh the Horror! We shouldn’t even think about it!

Don’t forget America’s fight to save muslims in Kosovo. Where was everybody else? How about aid to muslim countries every time there’s a disaster?

Gimmie a break! Europe and much of the world has an inferiority complex and needs America as a whipping boy.

I offer up a glass-half-full anecdote. Two years ago, about a third of the employees at my shop voted Democrat. This November, none will. If lots of other motivated conservatives played teacher as well, many Dems will fall next month. I’ll not relent my activism until the Constitution is fully restored. I believe large numbers of Americans will continue to do the same.

Lately, there’s nothing quite so sweet as hearing co-workers say: “We thought you were a right-wing militia wacko, but the things you said are coming true, you’ve been right all along.” To which I reply, easing their fears, “That doesn’t make us all wackos if you agree with me now, it just puts us on the same sensible, factual page. Don’t let somebody else pigeonhole your ideology and define who you are with a word or three. We’re all Americans here. In fact, I’ll bet I can prove you’re more conservative than you think….” It’s on. It is ON.

“Europe, for example, responded with unadulterated joy to the election of a statist, far left American president who apologized for American exceptionalism, adopted the socialist model of governance, pledged to reduce military expenditures, and brought his country to the brink of bankruptcy. Europeans did not realize — or did not want to acknowledge — that their “advanced” socialist experiment in welfare governance depended in large part upon American military spending for the continent’s defense, which permitted a liberated fiscal surplus to be invested in social programs, early retirement benefits, and a cradle-to-grave security network.”

Yes, since the end of World War II 65 years ago, Europe has had a free ride on the backs of all Americans. Even at the height of the Cold War, Europe’s spending on defense was laughable when compared to that of the United States. Yet we paid, and paid, and paid. And what did we get for all of that pain and sacrifice? Nothing but scorn and contempt from those little European children. Even Great Britain, which tried to keep up appearances militarily and did assist the United States on many occassions, did so with its population kicking and screaming all the way.

Perhaps it is time to leave Europe. Let them pay for their own defense (which they won’t). Keep one or two bases in Germany as a transit point for troops coming back from the Middle East, and close everything else. Let them see how much “fun” it is paying for your own defense and for the common defense of a lot of ungrateful nations. Trust me, we really don’t need NATO anymore now that Russia is also a mere shadow of its former self. Let the Europeans squabble amongst themselves and find a solution to almost 2,000 years of European greed, corruption, and barbarity. We have more important things to worry about and better things to spend our limited resources on.

Obama is Europe’s wet dream come true. Now they can choke on him. As for the rest of us Americans, we will begin the process of unwinding all of Obama’s disastrous domestic policies starting in November. As for Obama’s foreign policy (if, indeed, there is one), a good place to start is by saving buckets of money by letting Europe defend itself. I’m sure the French would love the idea of not having us there anymore. Time to make their dream come true.

“Perhaps it is time to leave Europe. Let them pay for their own defense (which they won’t). Keep one or two bases in Germany as a transit point for troops coming back from the Middle East, and close everything else.”

I think you are absolutely correct. I’ve long thought it’s time to cut Europe loose. They hate us anyway. We aren’t doing them any favors, and they would never defend us in a pinch. So let’s terminate the extended adolescence that post-war Europe has become. Besides, there are a lot more bubbles left to burst in our own economy no matter who takes congress next year. Our work is going to be cut out for us for years to come.

Do not let yourself get carried away: The silent Europeans who know what the United States stands for are there all right. It is just that the brainwashed and/or brain-dead crowd is so vocal. But, hey, was it not so in America before the Tea Partiers came forth?

This is a good point that I have emphasized often to my politically conservative friends. Just as the author is Canadian, he is just as much a libertarian and honorable Tea Party member as any of our own countrymen. Having lived in England for three years, I met plenty of likeminded Brits, but you would never know it from the lame stream media. Likewise, Germany, France, Austria, and Australia all have like-minded conservative parties that have sizable enough voting blocks to give them parliamentary seats. They are as as politically torn as we are.

I would love it if I could trade good European conservatives for American liberals. Liberalism, however, cannot survive apart from hard working conservatives. They are leeches. So a Europe full of likeminded socialist would fall quickly into anarchy, and then tyranny, probably the Sharian kind.

The problem is that the US needs a free and independent Europe almost as much as they need us, just as we need a free and independent Japan. Despite what the isolationist want to think we are all interconnected and must all remain strong or we will all fall.

“The problem is that the US needs a free and independent Europe almost as much as they need us, just as we need a free and independent Japan.”

The issue is not one of isolationism, or whether we need a free and independent Europe, but how committed is Europe to its own freedom and independence. The U.S. cannot carry a passive world. Europe is not committed to its own defense, because it assumes we will do all the heavy lifting. That is not acceptable.

“Luckily, it does seem as if many, perhaps most, Americans have realized, however tardily, that the enemy within the gates is far more insidious, formidable, and menacing than the enemy without.”

It isn’t luck. The proverbial American patience is exhausted. Having tried being nice and finishing last, the citizens are now organizing not-so-nice tactics to confront the parasites and defeat them.

“Will America shake off its ideological stupor and rise from the debris of its own making as, to our great relief, the once and future republic?”

No question. Not only will this great republic rise better and stronger, it will encourage all the far-flung beneficiaries of western civilization to join in. Anybody who thinks decay and decline is inevitable does not understand the American people.

You have a good point, the thing I am worried about is how the people in the big cities are going to react, I know the vast majority of the military is from the small towns in fly over country, and I know that most of the members of the National Guard are supporting the TEA party. Still there are a lot of people who will be opposing the restoration of the US, and there are times when I get worried about the national survival. What I am really worried about is that the US stays free but Europe doesn’t, then we will be in a Dark Age for sure, and one that will last centuries.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor—he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation—he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city—he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. ~ M. Tillius Cicero

The history and diagnosis on target. The treatment unluckily depends on the body politic “biting the bullet” and there are many if not most who want no hard decision or action, Even those now awakened from the torpor induced by the “best and brightest” with their bread and circuses. Rather to HOPE for the best.

The very people who trust their “leaders” despite indisputable evidence they are in the main untrustworthy : unfaithful to the contractual obligations spelled out in their oath to Uphold and Defend the Constitution of the USA : as adage, “when the cat’s away the mice will play.”

Can’t help but think you described it pretty well. It has seemed really bizarre the last few months to go about living and acting normally with the gaping chasm looming just ahead. I pray for a change of heart that begins with the individual and becomes the national.

Good by and good luck to you Bubber, if you are so insulted by the electoral process here in the United States (the think that is your greatest birth right) then you need to leavce. You need to ask for citizenship in your country of choice and renounce your American citizenship when you do. We that stay will then no longer have to worry about your voice and can then rightly ignore you.

You know…all you weak kneed loony libs keep threatening to leave….but alas…you haven’t the courage of your convictions or dementia. Wouldn’t this be a much better place if you wimps only kept your promises?

France would welcome you with open arms….just don’t forget your state flags….a white bedsheet.

That will depend on how we respond. While many at this site believe its only about being fiscally responsible, I would make the case that how we live our lives in other ways affects our culture, too, and will determine our future.

The Lord says to Israel through Jeremiah, “If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.”

We must recognize that we do evil, desire to change it, and actually do so. Within that is the necessity of listening to the Lord. So, I pray we will.

As a 57 year old born and raised in Minnesota and having lived there all my life, my perspective is that America is not on the urge of a political or economic meltdown. However, the America that once was is history and not just in the temporal sense. In my adult life, I have seen the word resolve go from a positive force to a dirty word and finally something that is absent altogether. When you have thousands of illegal aliens marching in our streets waving Mexican flags and no one lifts a finger to do anything, paralyzed by political correctness, then you know the party is over. A larger percentage of Americans dislike the story of America than ever before in its history and want payback, from liberal Leftist’s, to minorities to so-called feminist’s who want equality as long as it falls short of making vet hospitals co-ed, America is done for and what is to take it’s place no one knows other than it is something resembling intellectual fascism where a Hallmark Card using the term ‘black hole’ is racist and anyone on a talk show inadvertently using the term ‘retard’ is pilloried. Common sense in America is dead and we are being overwhelmed by the Latin American population explosion. R.I.P.

Excellent piece. I believe America can win this struggle and will survive. Eventually we will realize that there can be no economy without population growth. That will lead to banning the production of contraceptives and to the outlawing of abortion. There are many fronts in this conflict: demographics, education, government budgets… and we have to win in all fronts or we are doomed. Fortunately it seems that people are waking up from their long slumber.

When I first began to read your comments here, I figured that you had probably been brainwashed by liberal teachers while you were in school. But after reading more of your comments, I came to realize that there is so little grey matter up there in your little noggin that periodic light rinses had probably sufficed.

You aren’t smart enough to realize it. But your dopey pereceptions show that clearly YOU are the one who is an extremist.

Dianne, this clown’s just another dog in a museum, barking at thigns on the wall that he has no hope of ever understanding. The anti-intellectual, neo-Luddite wooden-headedness of the Left is fully on display with bad doggie Wow Really.

Clear and concise, his inclusion of Europes attitudes not withstanding. I reject this appology, as I refuse to appologise to a group of nations that America has more that twice have had to defend and insure their continued success.

We survived Woodrow Wilson. We survived Franklin Roosevelt, and we survived Jimmy Carter.

So I’m pretty sure that we’ll survive Barack …., and Michelle, too.

Obama is such a poor sport and such a sore loser and such a spiteful and vindictive, spoiled brat, though, that what worries me is what he will do between November, 2012, and January, 2013, after he loses the election in 2012. So maybe we should think about putting him in a straight jacket and in a rubber room before then.

I admire your optimism, but the longer a trend continues, the more suspect its further continuation becomes. Or, as Baron Philippe de Rothschild put it, “Trees do not grow to the sky.”

One of the reasons we’re in such shaky shape is that we’ve already had to survive Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and Carter. That’s depleted the capital — human and material — with which we came into the Twentieth Century to a dangerously low level. The Obamunists are taxing the margin that remains. It’s unclear whether they can deliver a death blow before we can put them out of our misery.

If we don’t elect a Congress that will fight for our freedom in November the US will be on a down hill slide that will be very hard to stop, one that will probably require a large violent revolution of stop. The world isn’t a nice place right now and it is going to get worse real soon. For this reason we need a government that will fight for us, not one that is busy trying to destroy us.

Woodrow, etc. (preogressives) were rather anomalies. The citizenry still believed in being citizens – even up into the Carter years. That was something that Reagan could tap into.

It’s simply not there to tap into anymore.

Listen to kids talk. Mention anything that happened in the 1950s and, before you can finish your sentence, they will jump in with “Well, everybody was racist back then.” They are convinced that they have nothing to learn from the ’50s because they themselves are so morally superior. Compound on that the gay pride nonsense, and kids today will tell you they have nothing to learn from the immediately previous generation because “you people are all intolerant! And we’re making the world a better place!”

Today’s kids are going to grow into a generation that is so self-impressed with its moral superiority and so unbelieving that they can make mistakes that they are going to hand the country over to every invader that comes along, and all in the name of tolerance.

And do not (DO NOT!) tell me “Every older generation thinks the younger one is irresponsible.” Yes, they all think that, and look at the decline. Tell me one worrisome thing that old folks said about the hippie generation that turned out to be overblown fear. One thing. Just one. We have a communist in the White House. It all came true, just like my grandpa warned.

You can only be torpedoed so many times and your ship will loose structural integrity and sink. We keep shoring up the holes, but the hull is craking and water is pouring in, and fewer and fewer people are willing to get in there an bail it out.

I personally think a ‘Barack Obama’ was inevitable and a necessary evil. It has galvanised the American People and awoken the Sleeping (apathetic) Giant. It was as seminal an event as the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor.

The gradual slide to the left that I have witnessed just in my lifetime (50+) has been dramatic. More and more “Moderate” candidates arose to appease the vocal Liberal minority. The Conservatives grew apathetic & lazy and then compounded this by failing to even vote.

The choice became Moderate or Leftist. Either don’t vote or vote for the lesser of two evils.

I am by nature a Pessimist, but for the first time in many years I feel Hope and Promise. I no longer feel alone, or unheard. We the People have re-found our Judeo-Christian values and our Voice.

America finds itself in the ring now with its homegrown Left—a bantam weight fighter if ever there was one. But the Left believes that its drive and determination to win will prevail over the strength of its opponent. Yet the Left has consistently overestimated itself and underestimated America. Despite the fact that it has trained for this moment for a long time the Left will lose the fight because it irrationally put itself into the ring with a heavyweight.

Canada does have a direct stake, not the least of which is that the defense of the North American continent is largely a function of the sanity and trustworthiness of the leadership in Washington DC.

Barack Obama and friends don’t have such a great track record in respecting our allies and our alliances.

After all these years of working to obtain a socialist puppet as President of the United States, George Soros and friends are having a hissy fit that the American electorate might still have some say in the matter.

We can’t “have a say”, if the truth is hidden from us intentionally, by those who are mandated to bring us the truth. The Pocket Media is part of the conspiracy to weaken America. They cover up the truth. They spread disinformation. They meet in secret and decide how to rape the information stream. They call us racist.

How can we have a say, when they are strangling the truth…the very essence of what we need to self-govern this land of ours? As much as we try, it is quite possible…we can’t. We don’t know even the tip of the iceberg…and our ship is bearing down at speed…at the bottom of it.

Kurtz’s observations match up well with what we’ve witnessed the past 2 years.

The evidence suggests he found it at the Socialist Scholars conferences, where (Obama) encountered the entrancing double idea that America could be transformed by a kind of undercover socialism, and that African Americans would be the key figures in advancing community organizing.

…a model for their ultimate goal of pushing the Democrats to the left by polarizing the country along class lines…The new coalitions would draw on the open or quiet direction of socialist community organizers…Groups like ACORN and Project Vote would swell the Democrats with poor and minority voters and, with the country divided by class, socialism would emerge as the natural ideology of the have-nots…ACORN adviser Frances Fox Piven…populist and communitarian language to achieve socialist ends through incremental legislative means…

More important, the president’s socialist past is still very much alive in the governing philosophy and long-term political strategy of the Obama administration.

We are being split by class/race warfare…in a manner that is very reminiscent of Hamas and Hezbollah attacking Israel. They hide behind hospitals, women, children…anyplace that a retaliation can be charged as “inhumane”. Similarly, the class/race destruction is mounting. We are not just polarized, we are pushed into a “let’s you and him fight” cage.

This is intentional. If African Americans and Latinos ever woke up to the fact that they are gladiators sacrificed for the amusement of the their leftist lanistas, they would flee the Democratic Party in droves. The leftists need to keep them down, keep them “victimized”, because if they ever broke free from the grasp of leftist brainwashing, they would realize that their better route, their ONLY route out of “permanent underclass”, would be to join the free market, small government movement.

Building businesses instead of grievances, building partnerships and alliances instead of chasms of forced inequities. It would be a bullet train to the top, but the leftists need to keep picking at the scabs, infecting the wounds. It’s what they do.

Those communities are a bit befuddled by the lack of “movement” by the “movement”. They are tired of defending what they now wonder, suspect, viscerally fell…might be a mirage. And like hijacked passengers told to keep calm, they are wondering if action, reaction or inaction is the safest, most prudent route.

They are reluctant to give up the crumbs tossed their way, for fear of quick starvation. But, they are barely alive now…stuck in the arena as gladiators and begging for just another crust of bread.

Kurtz is doing and has done important work. It needs to be buried by the hard leftists…and the Pocket Media will be conspiring as we speak to do that very thing.

For cfbleachers:
“How can we have a say, when they are strangling the truth…the very essence of what we need to self-govern this land of ours?”

Yes, possibly your fears are correct. So what? There are never going to be perfect conditions under which the fight for freedom is fought. What “they” do actually doesn’t matter. Enough citizens understand that the MSM is a waste of time. That is why these boards exist. Worrying about which group is not fulfilling its mandate as if the matter will be settled by a judge is not how we will win – and we will win.
Taking note of what is happening, making end runs around roadblocks, bigots, name-callers, refuseniks et al. and finding new ways to get out the vote, put sand in the legislative works, call out the liars and photograph the bullies – that is how it will happen. Everybody who understands can do something – every day, every week. Those contacts will create new contacts – ad infinitum until the entire populace is awake. Call it the political degrees of freedom.

Assuming true conservatives cannot turn the tide, the next step will be outright civil war. We are in one now, but no bullets are (yet) flying because there is still some hope in the ballot box. Even if Republicans take everything back, including the presidency by 2012, things are going to be dicey.

If the Conservatives win big in November look for the far left to start a home grown terror campaign similar to the one they carried out in the 60s and 70s. Things are going to get real nasty, and we have to add the Moslem terrorists to that mix.

Are America’s best days behind her? I honestly don’t know. I sat next to a WWII Vet the other day while having a flat fixed and did something I reserve for few – I simply listened to his wisdom. We talked about the Great War for a few minutes and he shared the horrors. Said he had only recently begun to talk about what he saw because it was too painful to relive for many years. But then he stared at the TV and changed the subject.

He wasn’t a professionally educated man by the common definition. Or an economic success if rich is what defines success. He drove an older model truck and told me he was just a small farmer, still struggling from day to day. He’d raised five kids and recently lost his wife. He told me he was at peace with his maker and was ready to see his wife. But he wasn’t bitter. Just a common man that had seen 86 years of life’s experiences – personal experiences I did not know. And he shared some of his wisdom with me – what he had learned and what he had witnessed. So I have paraphrased what he said to me in about a 30 minute conversation. I wish I could have taped it because I don’t do it justice.

“There are a multitude of symptoms and I talk in generalities, but I guess the real underlying problems in my opinion are a lack of courage and conviction, and our live and let live amoral attitudes. There is no sense of shame anymore, leading to irresponsibility, sloth and deviancy being dumbed downward. I can’t even watch network TV anymore – sounds like drunken sailors. We glamorize feckless sports stars but not our parents. We chase the almighty buck so we can own more “stuff”, but give little thought to teaching our children right from wrong.

We live by ignorant cliches of “diversity is our strength.” What once was united used to be our strength, but that’s been lost through years of political correctness and appeasement. People are too scared to be called racist and bigot, homophobic and intolerant. And our so called diversity hath wrought education based on esteem rather than achievement, morals based on man’s law rather than God’s law, self-servitude rather than service.

Churches and synagogues have become caterers to culture rather than truth, self immersion than true worship; we’re apparently are more concerned about what Europe thinks of us than what our neighbors think of us. We’ve lost our sense of community if you ask me. And it’s hard for me to believe that we have many citizens that apparently hate America and its history. It pisses me off, but I’m too old to do much about it anymore. I’ll be gone soon and you’ll have to fight the good fight, I guess. Treat this like its your Great War and do it for your kids.

Are America’s best days behind here? They are if we don’t say enough is enough and recapture the spirit of our forefathers and mothers. I think its overdue to listen to my friend the WWII Vet.

We stopped acting as the world’s nanny, so we could become the nanny to ourselves. Don’t tell mom the babysitter’s dead.

You know, when the 4th Century troglodytes emerged from their caves to kill our innocents and knock down the WORLD Trade Center buildings, we certainly got a lot of lip service from those in whom we invested blood and treasure for the past nine or so decades.

Then, they went back to their knitting. We gave them our all for their freedom, they gave us the back of their hand. Yet, it took this administration to return the bust of Winston Churchill. It took this administration to turn its back on Poland and the Baltics.

And, of course…it took this administration to triangulate the soft hatred of Israel…much as Britain, France and the whole of Western effete do so well.

We are becoming more Europe than Europe itself. And more Canadian, I suppose. Who will wrap us in swaddling clothes and keep us safe from harm? Not a soul. The infanticizing of America, making it helpless, weak, shrinking, …ripe picking for its enemies…required a model. We came, we saw, we surrendered.

However, for the record, Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper and his government have stood strong for Israel . . . unlike our Democrats, the Liberals, and their leftist, parliamentary toadies, who sell Israel down the river all the time. (And Canadian Jews: they vote Conservative, right? Wrong. Just like in the USA, Jews vote left, e.g., Democrat. Is that suicidal or what?)

Canada was not elected to the UN (what a decrepit outfit that is) Security Council today. I believe that put-down has EVERYTHING to do with the present, Conservative government’s principled support for Israel.

The western Jewish ritualists are not really Jews, sorry to any conservative Jews out there. They do the rituals but they do not believe in the authority. Christians who have marked theological differences with Jews are near completely allied with them, will metropolitan Jewish Liberals oppose their supposed doctrinal brothers, and we Christians who support them.

(1) The notion “West” no longer exists, as it means nothing. Unchecked liberal suicidal “tolerence” to all its enemies has finally killed it;

(2) The United Neo-Communist Islamic States of America will be reality in a generation’s time – the aftermath of unleashing by islam upon the West its demographic bomb about a generation ago;

(3) The future global conflict will involve the aggressive Chinese atheist communists and the violent socio-political cult of islam; The Americas will be irrelevant in that conflict;

(4) We’re now into the second century of the New Dark Ages (the 20th century ushered it), and it is shaping up to be far darker than the medieval Dark Ages;

(5) There’ll be a last gasp, a “dead cat bounce” for the remnant of the former “West” – and it will come with the November 2010 and November 2012 US elections.

Thoughts (1)-(4) first crossed my mind back in 1979-80 and nothing has taken place world-wide to invalidate them, except that the Reagan “dead cat bounce” was higher and likely longer lasting than the current one, coming up 30 years later – a typical dumped oscillation dynamic, as we say in math, with a periodic motion of a human generation. But the real dumper for the “West” is that the coming of the Second American Revolution is now just a dream.

If America fails, it will represent the beginning of a new dark age for mankind; miracles do not cluster, as Adams wrote. It is sad to think that such a wonderful civilization could be so fragile that a few perfidious congressmen could undermine what so many have lived and died for.

That would be Obama’s legacy, one that he would be proud of.

And all because a fat, happy, superficial electorate could not distinguish between a vote on American Idol and a president election.

“And all because a fat, happy, superficial electorate could not distinguish between a vote on American Idol and a president election.”

Yes, but if, as you say, American’s fall initiates a new dark ages, that fat, happy, superficial electorate will get hardened, tough and reality-based in a big hurry. Life will get very, very difficult. It’s anybody’s guess what would happen then. Perhaps there are grounds for hope.

I could be wrong, Bob, but I think that I’m seeing indications that the MSM and other Democrats are beginning to realize that the critics dislike Obama and Pelosi NOT becaure those critics are racists and sexists, but because Obama and Pelosi overreached, flagrantly abused their power, screwed up big time and went way, WAY too far.

I believe, also, that if Republicans in Congress can isolate Obama and make him the most ineffective, lamest lame duck president ever, there will be such a huge, collective sigh of relief by most Americans and there will be such a big boost to their morale that the economy will bounce back significantly in 2011, just from marginalizing OBama and Pelosi.

And when that happens, that is when the economy comes back and all feel happy, BHO will get re-elected and no one will be able to control him anymore. I just hope that Republicans in Congress recognize this: by taking steps to improve the economy, they will guarantee his re-election.

As I’m sure they both recognize this, the Democrats are more than happy to hand over Congress to the Republicans (for two years), so that they can get six more years of Obama.

Guess what the radical left has up its sleeves for the 2012-16 end beyond period then: marginalizing Congress with the assistance from a more than willing judiciary.

Civilization is always fragile, it will always fall to the corrupt officials who are interested in personal power rather then the good of the nation, having said that I don’t know if the US will fall or not. I do know that if the November elections don’t elect people interested in insuring freedom rather then increase government power we are in big trouble. I also know that from all indications we are in the opening decades of a Dark Age, one that may be averted if we manage to prevent massive violence in Europe and the US, things I am not sure we will be able to do. The lower and lower middle class in all of the European nations are poised to start a massive civil war that will spread to the rest of the world. The world enjoyed over 50 years of peace thanks to the US and nuclear weapons. Now that the Cold War is over people forgot we enjoyed that peace because of a strong military and are busy ensuring that a major war will occur in the next decade, probably early in the decade. Welcome to the world the left has created in their goal of becoming the Nobles and Royals of a neo feudal world wide government.

Your observations are correct. We are teetering on the edge of an abyss – a dark age that will indeed be long, dark and deep. The anti-civilizational forces of Islam (yes, Islam entire, not just the ‘radicals’) and the death worshipping cults of serial nihilists, power-lusters and looters that comprise the ‘progressive’ Left are all aiming at the same result: the destruction of Western civilization. The Left believes in a twisted millenial utopianism,; Islam strives for the conversion, enslavement or death of all that doesn not conform to its sadistic and cruel vision of Mankind.

If we wish to remain free, then terrible deeds are called for. Civilizations enemies aren’t simply going to shrug and walk away if we here in America happen to flip a few seats in a governing apparatus thsis is clearly out of control.

Europe will dissolve into a paroxysm of ruin and slaughter – its standard response to its own problems over the last 150 years or so – and mainly against its Islamic population.

In America, we face something analogous to South America’s ‘dirty wars’. The battle lines will occur anywhere, anytime and right through family living rooms.

Lastly, some long standing grudges will be fought with nuclear weapons. There are too many out there, control and oversight of which was lost long ago. The consequences of all three scenarios combined are unguessable.

Should Europe prevail over the Islamic cancer, it will spend another century or so struggling with its conscience what it had to do. As will we.

No, we did not survive Franklin Roosevelt. The old America was so dynamic that it took eighty years to bring it down from within. But the termites may find less nourishment in adversity this time around than they found in prosperity.

The errors that lead us to this point are many. We can’t go back, we can only go forward.

Those of us who have survived personal disaster know there are important decisions to make – how to change, what not to change. Ultimately it is choosing a belief system as a foundation for future behavior.

We believe in the Constitution, we believe in God. We will have to keep at this the rest of our lives, and we will have to drag along behind us those who don’t care, or just want their benefits.

Right now we are a majority, the question is will we continue to act with determination and resolve when the recession is over, when Obama is gone, when the wolf is not at the door? Bush told us the war on terror would last a long, long time, but Americans tired. If we tire and give up, it’s over. To me, this is war, and I will not give up.

Oh pooh, of course we did. My extended family has had a great life. All of us have realized the American Dream. The Greatest Generation set the table and provided us with a bountiful harvest of which previous generations had only ever dreamed.

Stop being so negative. The situation will get better. Marginalizing Obama and Pelosi will improve your whole perspective. You’ll see.

I am not so sure about that, the Boomers enlisted in the military during Nam at a much higher rate then was done during WWII, in WWII 60% of the people in the military were drafted, during Nam over 60% were enlisted. That isn’t spoiled and not willing to fight in my book. And yes I was one of the enlistees.

A perfect description of why Canada needs the US to be its healthy vigorous American self. I think that many Canadians resent and reject the envious sneers at the US, that run down the noses of our Liberal elites like snot down the nose of a child. Your description of the circumstances in the US is bang on. If there was no tea party movement I’d be very worried, but there is. A turnaround won’t be made in one giant cataclysm. It will be incremental. The first task is to stop the progressive juggernaut. After that the vast lefty superstructure that has emerged in the US needs to be dismantled. That will take years.

Yes it’s a dangerous time. Fortunately plain old reality has weighed in against the progressive cause in the US (no more money to support the illusion; having seen the workers’ paradise, the peasants don’t want it; the institutions of progressivism are dysfunctional etc, etc.) It may well be the end game for progressivism itself. The real danger lies in what comes after the Progressive Age. Will it be self government or will it be Mussolini?

Which will it be indeed — the answer to that question hangs in the balance for now.

Do Americans (at least more of them than one would expect) have the fortitude to bring the country back from the precipice? I believe they do; I think everyone shortchanges the resilience of the average American (even Americans shortchange themselves).
Will they do so in a way that keeps America “the land of the free”? Ah, that’s the crux! As very well stated here: the people are looking for “a leader” — that does not inspire optimism in me. America can “come back” in two ways: either it will rediscover itself, or it will reinvent itself as something altogether different that what it started out. If that is the way it goes, then expect Mussolini (or much, much worse) — and then the rest of the world (especially Europe and Canada) can learn the other side of “be careful what you wish for”. The rest of the West has always snickered at the thought of America falling, but they have also endlessly screeched about the “evil American empire” — right now those are two of the three potentialities, so the rest of the world has better than even odds of getting what it has always spoken about; in fact, they may have played a part in bringing either of those eventualities about.

There may come a time not to far in the future when the rest of the world will get to sit back and wonder and worry: will the Americans sacrifice themselves for liberty (not just for themselves, but for everyone)…yet again…and: will the Jews come to the defense of those who have oppressed them in over and over again, in order to save liberty and lives?
Karma has a strange way of playing out.

I am still worried about what is going to happen but last year the London Telegraph reported that between October 31, 2008 and October 31, 2009 the civilians in the US bought 39 billion rounds of ammo. The various tax watchdogs are reporting that the ATF taxes have increased 25% over last years, people are ready to fight if they have to, but how will the fight turn out? I enjoy readying military history and can say that once the fighting starts no one knows who will win until the war is over.

The difference between the United States and turdbowl Canada is that the average nice sweet wonderful Canadian has already accepted the loss of liberty. Whatever America’s future there will be a HUGE fight here to keep our liberty.

Granted, some Canadians are turds, as are some Americans, but Canada and its western provinces in particular have some of the most gloriously beautiful scenery in the world, and Canadians are certainly as advanced in many respects as we are.

In fact, if they could get rid of some creepy liberals from the USA with joint US/Canadian citizenship, even most other Canadians say that it would be an even better place to raise a family. Liberal immigrants from the USA are the ones who are screwing up Canada. True story. But then, that’s the same story EVERYWHERE. Liberals are like an infestation of cockroaches on this planet. Those parasites eat, sleep, give nothing back and serve no useful purpose, and yet they’re always bitching about everything – in Canada, just as they do here. Go figure.

Dianne, thanks. But this pro USA (anti Obama) Canadian cannot agree that it’s only liberal US citizens now in Canada who are contaminating our country.

Most brainwashed Canadians do not vote conservative. In Parliament, we have a multitude of left-wing parties: one is the totally secular, socialist, separatist, altogether anti-American (though they, no doubt, like what Obama’s doing, break up the union (as in treasonous) Bloc Quebecois.

Canada’s a hotbed of leftism, including ALL our elites and our public education system. Without the USA, these idiots would be living far less high on the hog than they do now. Are they grateful? NO WAY.

Unfortunately, we have no Tea Party movement. But yours will have a real affect here. Yeah!

I was referring primerily, though not entirely, to two generations of agitators, some of whom are trained professionals, and many of whom were, in their first generation, mixed in with draft dodgers and anti-war activists who fled to Canada during the Viet Nam War, and remained there after already creating unrest here …, incessant troublemakers, all of whom are progressives, trained to create unrest and dissension, but who blend in, slyly pretending to be ordinary people. There are bench warrants out for their arrest if several of them ever return to this country. Compared to them, the French Canadian agitators in Quebec were and still are rank amateurs.

Dianne, I appreciate your response, but I think our French Canadian subversives here are made of the same cloth as the transplanted American ones. The main difference is that the French Canadian traitors in our midst have extorted huge amounts of appeasement dollars from the Rest of Canada (ROC) over many decades.

And, do these parasites appreciate what they’ve been given? No way. in fact, the raison d’etre of the Bloc Quebecois–paid in full by the ROC–is to separate from Canada. Mon Dieu!

Beware the third generation of younger and more impatient agitators, which is being spawned even now as we speak, and who will swell the ranks of the first and second generations of agitators already in place throughout Canada, and whose objective will be to topple the Canadian government by 2020 and to establish a [thoroughly] Progressive government in Canada to further isolate the United States if Progressives in this country fail to accomplish their objectives.

(There, you see, they’ve partially succeeded already; i.e., they’ve gotten me to use the word, Progressives, who are, in fact, Marxists …., although I’ve always said, also, that the words, liberal and progressive, are just nice synonyms for the words, immoral and evil; another issue for another thread perhaps.) Bonne chance, mom ami.

While I’m rambling here, let me add that what I consider to be somewhat interesting, also, is that although President George W. Bush came from an elitist, wealthy family, and although Barack H. Obama professed to be a man of the people all while he was campaigning to become POTUS, actually it was President George W. Bush who was always a humble man of the people, and President Barack H. Obama shows every day that he is a decadent dilettante, who considers himself to be not just an elitist, but annointed as royalty, also. Oh the irony.

(Never mind another one of my pet peeves, which is that Obama has shown repeatedly that he is an accomplished, compulsive and pathological liar.)

Baloney. We are practically living out Dostoevsky’s Inquisitor’s promise that, “They will lay their freedom at our feets and says, make us your slaves, but feed us.”

Even many conservative Americans are myrmadons. They talk over liberty, and they wave the flag, but they would rather watch football than CSPAN (And I love football). They have no interest in winning in the trenches. They are just as bad as the liberals who are looking for a singel man to come along and be our savior.

We must fight the good fight, and it starts with your local representative. Yes, the race for president is important, but you must know what your state representative, district representative, state governemtn senator, and state appointed sentator to washington believe, and how they vote. America will only survive if we return it to its roots, local governence. Conservatives have been bad, not as bad as liberals, but bad enough about looking for the federal government to solve all our problems too. Then we are fiercely dissapointed, as we should be, when the grifters with R behind their name are no better than the ones with D behind their name.

If George Bush’s presidency showed us anything, its that we can’t just send someone to Washington with an R behind their name and expect them to do the right thing. I’m looking at you Arizona. We need to all look back into our own States and clean house there, and America will natually right itself, as it keel is individual liberty and States rights.

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored…I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps…Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel…He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat…DEMOGEDDON!

Coming to an end: 60 years of peace, prosperity, and comfort with massive urbanization and electronic toys has made the populace weak and indolent. The dangers are gone, the massive enemies are gone, the struggle to survive is gone and we fail to learn how to live without our ancestral challenges. Now we have only a few overseas terrorists, a few diseases, a little bad weather, and expanding waistlines to keep alert. Is our last conquest and triumph of the Gold Age of the American Dream to be social programs?

Those terrorists are unfortunately not few enough in number, and they are not all overseas. They are being helped too.

But as you and Rik have stated — we have gotten fat, comfortable, and complacent thanks to the bounty of a very good life. We won’t have that luxury soon (we are losing it now), and the wolves are at the gate.

I’m afraid we have not yet begun to have to fight — will we have the stomach for it? I hope so. I hope our allies do as well. I’m pessimstically hopeful.

When you have the US waging war against objective reality, as seen here in this 1952 article in Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,816146,00.html and in combination with title insurance questions, as
remarked here, US “Robo foreclosures” threaten new financial meltdown – Telegraph Blogs

Re-mortgages are affected too. Not only foreclosures. Its about title.

When rates change for existing homeowners if they have a flawless record they often re-mortgage to obtain a better rate. That might have been packaged and sold.

It doesn’t matter whether you are in foreclosure or not — if you have a mortgage, it may have been packaged and sold once, twice, three times or more and there’s no paper trail to determine ownership. If there has been a failure to ‘perfect the collateral lien of the securities.’

Similarly, even if you paid the mortgage off, did you pay the correct party? Unless you got back the actual (original, ink-signed) mortgage document, there may be an issue. The issue is title. Final decision rests with the courts.

This is why title is so important. Without title insurance obtaining any mortgage is almost impossible. Even if you have a flawless history of repayment. Millions of Americans are affected and they do not know it yet.

and here, US housing market faces new threat from foreclosure row

The issue is about title and a poorly managed document trail. Not limited to just foreclosures.

As the article stated ownership questions may not arise until a home is under contract and the potential purchaser applies for title insurance, or even decades later as one deed researcher catches errors overlooked by another. Defective title means the person who paid for and moved into a house may not be the legal owner.

So for cases of lost or mishandled paperwork, attorneys in many cases are allowed to re-file documents to correct omissions and establish a claim. That however requires the intervention of the courts.

This issue potentially affects anyone who’s had a mortgage since documentation shortcuts became an issue. How long? Possibly Years.

It doesn’t matter whether you are in foreclosure or not — if you have a mortgage, it may have been packaged and sold once, twice, three times or more and there’s no paper trail to determine ownership. If there has been a failure to ‘perfect the collateral lien of the securities.’

Similarly, even if you paid the mortgage off, did you pay the correct party? Unless you got back the actual (original, ink-signed) mortgage document, there may be an issue. The issue is title. Final decision rests with the courts.

Title insurance is therefore likely to become harder to obtain. Without this it is unlikely a mortgage can be obtained. The implications are obvious. Especially for those millions of Americans who are up to-date with their mortgages and might wish to re-mortgage if rates fall. Questions of title might well now be asked. Especially if your mortgage has been packaged and sold and there’s no paper trail.

It’s not beyond the possibility the unfortunate up to-date American homeowner might be stuck with both the house and existing mortgage until the process is undertaken through the court in order to be able to re-finance.

This is why it is an unholy mess. Securitization has the potential to make poor document trail much worse.

and this: Currency wars are necessary if all else fails

Obama exercised his veto Friday.

The looming crisis in foreclosures centres around title. For example does the new owner of a home previously repossed actually own it? Or technically has title not yet passed? How are potential buyers going to react? Wait & see? Banks rely upon title insurance to make loans, even for those people considered good credit risks. And then there’s the MBS issue for overseas buyers. Will these now dry up?

I expect title insurance now to be harder to obtain until direction is given. As a result bank lending will be curtailed.

I agree QE is simply taxation plus interest in the future. Something I am totally against. Yes it is cheating the future. Yet QE is better than a frozen banking system in housing and for other loans as banks stop lending. Those involved in the moritorium might not lend for housing (possibly except new-builds) even if this QE is undertaken until this title issue is resolved. The question is, can their systems handle proper compliance of foreclosures if the existing procedure has not been followed correctly? A logical question regarding the title paperwork for those not facing foreclosure. Is this okay?

Despite the uproar it would have been better to allow the bill to pass IMHO. This is a complete & utter mess. Unlikely to be addressed soon. This matter is clearly not going away. IMHO bank lending is going to fall in the US. Fast.

Well, Solway is a fine writer and we share some things in common but I am afraid he yearns a little too much for the great American restoration. I think he fears truly that it will not happen, and so do I. Never were things as great as once they were claimed (to have been). The disconnect between citizens and the political elites have been large for many many years. Most of the super-conservatives here see the political polarization as the prelude to cleaning the house with the big broom, and sweeping the Left away. But the Left is now a heavy demographic fact, and so much of what passes as truth has never quite been. If America’s main problem, as conservatives believe, is erosion of the Judeo-Christian ethic, then this was partly furthered by an ethos that raises politics itself to a religious stature. Worship of concepts of individualism and freedom – without having a real clear idea of what they represent – actually works against those ‘Ten Commandments’ beliefs in some ways. Individualism, capitalism, property rights, etc., while having positive value can not be elevated to iconic stature without a lot of confusion setting in.

OTOH I don’t see some traumatic or epic collapse of the US political system. The most disturbing trends, aside from polarization and just plain lack of knowledge on all sides, are the bumbling economy, which may have incurred too much damage to ever correct, and the growing polarization. In the past, when the US was more homogeneous and values more truly shared, raucous political fighting could be absorbed; now, it runs the risk of tearing the fabric of things apart.

(Not to mention the polarization). Sorry for the lousy sentence. The other thing is that people need to just be more open-minded and consider that famous events that set entire cultural and military trends might not have happened as most believe. How they exactly happened, it’s hard to say. But people in the US need to get that lots of times ‘they just get lied to.’

The blessings of individualism, freedom, rights comes with great personal and societal responsiblity — moral, ethical responsiblity if you will. It’s a delicate balancing act. It’s human nature to like the easy way, the irresponsible way; to want all the blessings without all the hard work, and perhaps to spend all one’s attention on the wish for the idealized image and reject the harsh, warty realities. Nobody is innocent in this, and there is no way a free society can exist without taking the responsiblities, hard work, and grim acceptance of reality into account.

Their entire schtick is based on convincing person X that person Y is richer, meaner, oppressing them, whatever.

It became almost comical to watch people like that privileged, drunken reprobate, the guy who got away with murder because of connections, Ted Kennedy, proclaim on the sad plight of The Other.

I always thought, why does anyone listen to such obviously transparent & hypocritical schmaltz from this guy ? Americans in general grew in wealth over his long career, by Teddy’s schtick never changed.

Obama and friends have ramped up the divisiveness (race, class, wealth, religion, you name it), pushing it to a level I haven’t seen in my lifetime.

As Stanley Kurtz aptly points out, engendering divisiveness is foundational to the big government, socialist agenda. Psychologically, teaching individuals, especially young individuals, that they are “lesser than” is devastating.

It is my fond hope that more and more of the people placed in these categories are catching on to the idea this government is only using them as fodder to advance its liberty-destroying agenda.

In 1993, the United States of America was enjoying its ‘peace dividend.’ After decimating Saddam Hussein’s vaunted military, built on Soviet weaponry; after watching the utter collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and the liberation of a group of new ‘friends’ from the grip of the Soviets; after finally spotting a balanced budget on the horizon and watching the National Debt Clock actually start to run backwards, President Bill Clinton decided to tackle the problem of peace in the Middle East as the crowning achievement of his young presidency. He felt he could solve the impasse. Sound familiar?
The prophet Zechariah warned that anyone who decides to tackle the problem of Jerusalem will be “cut in pieces.” Where does America stands 17 years on from the signing of The Oslo Accords and the beginning of our earnest meddling in Israel’s affairs.
A little more than half of our taxpayers, 53%, picked up the tab this past April 15th for the remaining 47% who didn’t pay any federal income tax. According to USA Today:
The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the U.S. from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10% of earners — households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 — paid about 73% of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
The article goes on to say:
The bottom 40%, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax system, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.
We have a national tax system where the top 10% of earners are paying 73% of the federal income taxes, while the bottom 40% are making a profit. What a country!
No wonder so many of the world’s citizens want to come here and stay.